Observation of ion-acoustic solitary waves in a dusty plasma

An experiment on ion-acoustic solitary waves in dusty plasma is performed in a dusty double-plasma device. The leading part of a sinusoidal pulse develops to an oscillation. The troughs of the oscillation become shallow when dust particles are mixed into the plasma. The Mach velocity of the first peak in the oscillation decreases due to the presence of negatively charged dust grains for a fixed height of the peak. The width of the peak normalized with Debye length increases when the dust particles are introduced into the plasma. The experimental results are compared with the numerical integrations of a modified Korteweg-de Vries-Burgers equation which contains the terms of kinematic viscosity and of collisions of ions with the dust particles. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.